Nine Things You Probably Want to Know about TI’s Acquisition of National Semi

Friday morning, TI announced it had completed the acquisition of National Semi. Let’s skip the sentimental stuff and cut to the chase. Here’s what TI says about the impact of the deal on design engineers who have used National’s ICs:

1. All of National’s product folders, datasheets and apps info can now be found at ti.com.

2. No National parts are to be obsoleted, not even the ones that are pin-compatible. The handful of National parts that had the same PNs as TI parts will now have a dash-N suffix.

3. The old National parts will still be built in the National fabs, which have excess capacity to meet demand upticks.

4. The WEBENCH on-line design tool isn’t going away. It’s moving to the TI Website and will be accessible by October 1. Appropriate TI parts will be added to it, and TI’s SwitcherPro design tool will continue to facilitate designs that use TI parts.

5. National’s customer support line: 1-800-272-9959 remains active. Eventually, there will be a single contact point for customer support.

6. If you need samples or eval kits, call the old TI or National numbers or work through your disti.

7. Pricing issues? None affecting existing agreements.

8. Order entry? For now, continue to place direct orders for National products as you’ve been doing. .

9. Who’s my disti? Hang tough. That’s being worked out.

Okay, that’s the nitty-gritty. I am sentimental about National , but I’m sure that other industry reporters are writing about Sprague and Sporck ,Widlar, Dobkin, Pease, and the thousands of others who did amazing things with the physics of semiconductors – and created a world that I assure you wasn’t even science fiction back in 1959, when I was a high-school senior. I’m happy that TI, with a similar long history, is handling the acquisition so well.

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